Comments on: Cable News Ratings for Thursday, August 21

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:08:51 +0000

Olbermann has been very good for MSNBC, they are certainly happy with him from a business perspective.

In terms of the money made by the networks, and the individual shows, we've been told repeatedly by those involved that the # of viewers from 25-54 for prime time is a rough guide to revenue potential for the network as a whole, and that same viewer group for individual shows.

By: Moderate

Moderate — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:10:14 +0000

"I would imagine MSNBC is very pleased with his performance."

I would imagine News Corp is much more pleased. One third of Fox viewers are Democrats which says Fox has more Democrat viewers than MSNBC has viewers.
The objective of any company is to make money

"In 2007, for the first time, Fox News raised more advertising revenue than the combination of CNN and the sister network Headline News, according to the research firm SNL Kagan," writes Stelter. "It estimates that Fox earned $460 million in advertising last year, while CNN and Headline News netted $434 million and MSNBC earned $137 million."

By: Swede Howard

Swede Howard — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:57:11 +0000

You are correct that Olbermann's program is not news but opinion-news
By the direction of his slant, Olbernmann's obviously set himself up as O'Reilly's bete noire and I believe he's doing pretty well with it. He, along with O'Reilly have news-opinion shows.

Because of his audience demographics (much better with the younger crowd) I would imagine MSNBC is very pleased with his performance. The show likely has a pretty good bang for the buck in ad revenue.

Olbermann will likely never be able to compete for viewers with O'Reilly or anyone else on Fox for that matter; First, there are more staunch conservatives than liberals in the country; second, the political affinity toward the right tends to increase substantially as one gets older and older people tend to watch cable television at much higher rates than younger people; e.g. approximately 23% of the US population is over 55 while on the last two reported nights of ratings, an average of 55% of the 8:00 pm Cable "News" audience was over 55%; and on both nights, O'Reilly had over 40% of the total audience.

By: stephenmartin

stephenmartin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:07:42 +0000

<<<<>>>>

LOL… You said it all. lol

By: Olbyloon

Olbyloon — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:52:18 +0000

TO: Chris Merrill

Mr. Olbermann's show, for lack of a better term is not a “newcast” as you state. It is an opinion show. He doesn't report anything, unless you call copy and pasting Media Matters and MoveOn talking point to his teleprompter reporting. his show is more like an hour long rant fest. I don't think it will ever matter who is on MSNBC at this point. Until they offer some type of balance they will continue to fail. They are failing for the same reason Air America did. Nobody wants to listen to the same crap over and over again without hearing a debate or challenge from opposing viewpoints. Of course, in Keith's head he is winning so maybe that's all that matters.

By: Chris Merrill

Chris Merrill — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:33:14 +0000

Yes, but I doubt Olbermann has much viewership west of the Mississippi either, at least until you hit California. That's their audience.
As for the ratings effect, I believe that Maddow will, within 100k viewers, hold the line after Olbermann. She will do much better if Olbermann finds better stories to finish his newscast with. Like I said a few posts ago, unless its a special comment, I personally turn him off after worsts. No, I don't care that the bigfoot thing you ran a while ago was a hoax, because that was ALSO a #1, so I didn't watch it. No, I don't need to see Olbermann running a clip of Joel McHale running a clip of Olbermann running a clip of Joel McHale running a clip of Olbermann running the clip of him on The Soup.
DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH THOSE 5 MINUTES! The whole point of Oddball, according to Olbermann, is to put the 'fun' stuff at the middle of the broadcast.

By: Larry LeBlanc

Larry LeBlanc — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:37:20 +0000

It will be interesting to see what effect Rachel Maddow will have on the ratings mix.
Personally, I think she will appeal mainly to the SOHO elite and long standing “Sex in the City” politically savy 'in” crowd. I don't think much viewer excitment will be generated west of the Mississippi.